Association Annual Conference Research Articles

Use of Digital COVID-19 Exposure Notifications at a Large Gathering: Survey Analysis of Public Health Conference Attendees.

WA Notify was Washington State's smartphone-based COVID-19 digital exposure notification (EN) tool, which was used to help limit the spread of COVID-19 between November 30, 2020, and May 11, 2023. Following the 2022 Washington State Public Health Association Annual Conference, attendees who had WA Notify activated began receiving ENs alerting them to a possible COVID-19 exposure during the conference. A survey was emailed to all conference attendees to measure WA Notify adoption, mechanisms through which attendees received ENs, and self-reported engagement in protective behaviors postexposure. This study aimed to learn more about the experiences of WA Notify adopters and nonadopters who may have been exposed to COVID-19 at a large group gathering. A web-based survey administered through REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture; Vanderbilt University) was sent to all attendees of the Washington State Public Health Association conference. Self-reported demographic information and characteristics of respondents were summarized. Regression models were used to estimate relative risks to compare WA Notify adoption and testing behaviors between groups. Of the 464 total registered attendees who were sent the survey, 205 (44%) responses were received; 201 eligible attendees were included in this analysis. Of those, 149 (74%) respondents reported having WA Notify activated on their phones at the time of the conference. Among respondents with WA Notify activated, 54% (n=77) reported learning of their potential exposure from a WA Notify EN. Respondents who reported that they did not have WA Notify activated and learned of their potential exposure via the event-wide email from conference organizers were 39% less likely to test for COVID-19 compared to respondents with WA Notify activated who learned of their potential exposure from the email (relative risk 0.61, 95% CI 0.40-0.93; P=.02), and this gap was even larger when compared to respondents who learned of their exposure from a WA Notify EN. The most commonly cited reason for not having WA Notify activated was privacy concerns (n=17, 35%), followed by not wanting to receive ENs (n=6, 12%) and being unaware of WA Notify (n=5, 10%). Digital EN systems are an important tool to directly and anonymously notify close contacts of potential exposures and provide guidance on the next steps in a timely manner. Given the privacy concerns, there is still a need for increasing transparency surrounding EN technology to increase uptake by the public if this technology were to be used in the future to slow the spread of communicable diseases.

‘The 35th Annual Conference of the European Air Law Association’ Summary Report of a Conference Held in Stockholm on 9/10 November 2023

The 30th Annual Conference of the European Air Law Association (EALA) convened on 10 November 2024 in Stockholm, Sweden. The Conference, including the preceding Conference Dinner on 9 November featured a wealth of high-quality speakers and discussions on a diverse range of topical aviation law subjects. Conference report, EALA, European Air Law Association

Report of the 13th Annual Conference of the Worldwide Airports Lawyers Association (WALA), in Paris, France, on 28-30 June 2023

The 13th Worldwide Airports Lawyers Association (WALA) Annual Conference (WALA is a global association that unites airport lawyers, aviation industry professionals, and stakeholders to collaborate, share knowledge, and address legal issues in the field of airport law. See further, https://abiaxair.com/wala2023/links.php), splendidly hosted by Groupe Aéroports de Paris (ADP), https://www.parisaeroport.fr/en/homepage-group convened on 28–30 June 2023 in the enchanting city of Paris. The three-day event featured a diverse agenda including the Pre-conference Seminar dedicated to airport commercialization, the Airport Law Conference replete with fourteen different sessions, and a momentous addition – the First Urban Air Mobility Legal Forum. Through intellectually stimulating exchanges, WALA XIII paved the way for a future of airport law in support of a sustainable, innovative, and robust civil aviation sector. Conference report, WALA, Worldwide Airport, Lawyers Association

Are Economics Conferences Gender‐Neutral? Evidence from Ireland*

We study gender inequality in conference acceptance using data from the Irish Economic Association annual conference from 2016 to 2022, exploiting the introduction of anonymized submission in 2021 to study the effect of blinding. While no gender gap is observed in organizers' acceptance decisions, there is an indication of gender difference favouring the in‐group at the reviewer stage. In particular, male reviewers persistently give higher scores to papers with an increasing share of male authors. Evidence suggests that the difference stems from unconscious stereotyping against lesser known female authors. Anonymization eliminates the gender gap of male reviewers, but introduces a gender gap in favour of male authors for female reviewers. We explore differential selection as an alternative explanation, finding that reviewer experience postblinding could potentially account for our results.

Reimagining LRA in the Spirit of a Transcendent Approach to Literacy

This invited paper highlights the reflections of expert panelists who were spontaneously called upon, graciously accepted, and quickly organized to respond thoughtfully and compellingly to Dr. Arlette Willis' powerful and timely Oscar Causey address at the 2022 Literacy Research Association (LRA) annual conference. In her address, Dr. Willis issued a clarion call for a Transcendent Approach to Literacy (TAL) to a space where “We re-create literacy as an equitable and moral construct” (Willis, 2023, p. 133). This paper comprises Dr. Alfred Tatum's comprehensive introduction, the cogent reflections on TAL by panelists Dr. Josh Coleman, Dr. Marcus Croom, Dr. Matthew Deroo, Dr. Michiko Hikida, Dr. Emily Machado, Dr. Patriann Smith, Dr. Chad Waldron, and Dr. Rahat Zaidi, and Dr. Willis' eloquent epilogue. In her epilogue, she provides not an ending but the genesis of a movement forward for the LRA community to “be brave” and actively and genuinely engage in a TAL that “democratizes literacy, declaring literacy belongs to all.”

Field trip guides of the 20th Annual Conference of the European Association of Vertebrate Palaeontologists, 26th June – 1st July 2023, Sabadell (Barcelona), Spain

Field trip guides of the 20th Annual Conference of the European Association of Vertebrate Palaeontologists, 26th June – 1st July 2023, Sabadell (Barcelona), Spain

Book of Abstracts of the 20th Annual Conference of the European Association of Vertebrate Palaeontologists, 26th June – 1st July 2023, Sabadell (Barcelona), Spain

Book of Abstracts of the 20th Annual Conference of the European Association of Vertebrate Palaeontologists, 26th June – 1st July 2023, Sabadell (Barcelona), Spain

Laparoscopic Distal Pancreatico-Splenectomy for Mucinous Cystic Neoplasm of Pancreas

Introduction: Mucinous cystic neoplasms are rare premalignant tumors of the pancreas and account for 1–2% of all pancreatic tumors. Surgical removal before invasive malignancy offers the best long-term outcome.1 Distal pancreatectomy with or without spleen preservation remains the standard procedure. Although an open technique is still the most commonly used approach, laparoscopy is associated with less pain, less blood loss, less morbidity, similar clinical outcomes, and an early return to activities.2,3 This video presents a laparoscopic distal pancreaticosplenectomy (LDPS) performed for a mucinous cystic neoplasm in the body of pancreas. Materials and Methods: A 30-year-old lady presented with a 2-year history of recurrent epigastric pain that had increased in severity over the past 2 months and required admission. Her physical examination was normal. A contrast-enhanced computed tomogram revealed a 3 × 3 cm well-defined cystic lesion in the tail of the pancreas adherent to the splenic vein. An endoscopic ultrasonography with fine needle aspirate revealed a complex cystic mucinous cystic neoplasm measuring 2.8 × 2.5 cm in the body of the pancreas. Owing to its premalignant potential and recurrent symptoms, an LDPS was performed for the mucinous cystic neoplasm of the body of pancreas. Vaccinations covering Streptococcus pneumoniae, Neisseria meningitidis, and Haemophilus influenzae were administered 2 weeks before surgery. The patient was placed in a French position with ports as shown in the video. Spleen preservation was not attempted because of the splenic vein involvement. The pancreas was divided using a stapler and the vessels were divided using sequential clips. The pancreas was separated from the spleen as it was a nonmalignant lesion and enabled easy removal from the port site without enlarging the incision or morcellation. Results: The operative time was 90 minutes with <10 mL of blood loss. The perioperative course was uneventful, and her diet was resumed on postoperative day 1. The drain was removed on postoperative day 3 after an insignificant drain amylase. The patient was discharged on postoperative day 4. Final histopathology report revealed a low-grade mucinous cystic neoplasm of the pancreas. The patient is asymptomatic at 3 months follow-up. Conclusion: LDPS is a safe and feasible approach for mucinous cystic neoplasms of pancreas. It provides less pain, lower blood loss, and early return to work to the patient while providing similar outcomes. The authors have no commercial associations resulting in conflict of interest with respect to the submitted video. Author(s) have received and archived patient consent for video recording/publication in advance of video recording of procedure. Runtime of video: 9 mins 57 secs This video was presented and awarded third best video presentation at SURGICON 2022 (Annual conference of Association of Surgeons of India—Delhi Chapter) on November 13, 2022.

Meeting report: the 2022 British Adult Congenital Cardiac Nurses Association Annual Conference

In this month's BANCC column, Hannah Swift and colleagues provide an overview and brief discussion of last year's British Adult Congenital Cardiac Nurses Association Annual Conference.

What is an Image? Roundtable transcription, International Visual Sociology Association annual conference, 16 September 2022

What is an Image? Roundtable transcription, International Visual Sociology Association annual conference, 16 September 2022

What is an Image? Artists’ panel transcription, International Visual Sociology Association annual conference, 16 September 2022

What is an Image? Artists’ panel transcription, International Visual Sociology Association annual conference, 16 September 2022

Satire as the Comic Public Sphere: Postmodern “Truthiness” and Civic Engagement

Satire as the Comic Public Sphere: Postmodern “Truthiness” and Civic Engagement

Summary Report of the 34th Annual Conference of the European Air Law Association (EALA), Athens 4th of November 2022

Summary Report of the 34th Annual Conference of the European Air Law Association (EALA), Athens 4th of November 2022

“We should have held this in a circle”: White ignorance and answerability in outdoor education

This critical ethnography highlights an ongoing research partnership between two Indigenous studies scholars and their effort to prepare outdoor educators to support Indigenous students more effectively in their programs. After a listening session at the Oregon Indian Education Association annual conference where Indigenous educators and community members urged the Oregon State University Outdoor School 1 program to address how outdoor education reproduced stereotypes of Indigenous peoples and appropriated Indigenous knowledge systems, the authors developed and implemented a series of professional development workshops for outdoor educators in various regions throughout Oregon. The workshops sought to prepare outdoor educators to more effectively support Indigenous students in their classrooms and schools. This article documents the ways outdoor educators embraced or evaded those concepts and commitments and offers recommendations for outdoor education programs and professional development.

Writing in Englishes: Taking Control of the Technology of Power through Literary Aesthetics: A Keynote Speech to the African Studies Association Conference, 2021

AbstractAs language increasingly becomes uncoupled from the nation state, transnational writers, transnational African writers, and African writers are using language to serve their own purposes and creating new literary aesthetics. This essay, first given as a keynote speech to the 2021 African Studies Association Annual Conference, examines some debates about the relationship between language and power and argues that these are being upended by writers who do not fit conventional categories, including transnational African writers. These writers are exploring the range of options presented by their own multilingualism and making unapologetic aesthetic claims upon the English language.

Quality of Occupational Therapy Research in India - A Descriptive Review.

Occupational therapy (OT) enhances functional independence in the daily activities of people with disabilities and subsequently their quality of life. Research in OT generates evidence to provide safe and effective services to the disabled. However, OT research in India has been shown to have various methodological limitations. These methodological limitations are expected to impact the quality of OT research as well as the evidence derived from this research to inform decision-making in rehabilitation. The majority of the OT research is disseminated and promoted through the All India Occupational Therapists' Association's (AIOTA) annual national conference (ANC). Analyzing the abstracts, selected for the presentation at the ANC could help understand and strategically improve the quality of OT research in India. To explore and describe the quality of OT research in India. Descriptive analysis. Descriptive, nonsystematic review and analysis of the key methodological aspects of the conference abstracts submitted for the AIOTA ANC published in the Indian Journal of OT (IJOT) from 2017 to 2021 was carried out. Information related to the methodological aspects of the research abstracts was extracted using a data extraction form and the data were synthesized and reported descriptively. About 218 abstracts had been selected for either poster or oral presentations in the AIOTA ANC. All the abstracts were included for the review. A total of 8055 participants were recruited for the studies conducted from 2017 to 2021. About 5757 (72%) of the participants were recruited for cross-sectional studies. Nearly 72 (33%) of the abstracts presented were related to cross-sectional studies, 52 (24%) were case studies and 66 (30%) were experimental studies. However, research designs implying highest level of evidence such as systematic reviews were only 4 (2%) and randomized controlled trials were only 9 (4%) with 297 participants. Notably, 203 (98%) of the all the studies evaluating effectiveness of interventions or aiming to investigate associations reported positive results with statistically significant improvements and associations. The review provides invaluable information related to the quality of OT research in India. It implies the need to improve the scientific rigor of the evidence generated in relation to OT research in India. This review also implies the need for a radical change and strengthening of OT research within OT education and professional practice in India. National and global OT associations need to prioritize good quality OT research by enhancing the research skills and competencies of OTs in India. This could help promote evidence-based OT science and develop the OT profession in the world's second-most populous country. In addition, it is also expected to encourage those OT researchers who have been striving to build OT research standards in India.

A Message from Stacy Bailey, Second Vice President and Organizer of the 52nd College English Association Annual Conference

A Message from Stacy Bailey, Second Vice President and Organizer of the 52nd College English Association Annual Conference

‘Keywording Taiwan’: Report of the 26th North American Taiwan Studies Association (natsa) Annual Conference, Online, 20–21 May 2021

Abstract This report details the origination, organisation, and reflections of the 26th North American Taiwan Studies Association (natsa) 2020/2021 (2020 + 1) conference. The theme—‘Keywording Taiwan’—aims to identify core issues, historical turning points, critical populations, and fundamental theoretical arguments on Taiwan among transregional and interdisciplinary scholarship. We challenged scholars to synthesise decades of literature and, from there, offer cutting-edge and timely research to answer fundamental questions as well as effectively respond to the various injustices during this uncertain time. In this report, we discuss how a ‘keyword’ is not a fixed concept but a restless confrontation from within, as practices of deconstruction and recontextualisation that frame the recurring issues for Taiwan studies. We also discuss how we intentionally structured our conference to be more accessible, inclusive, and interactive. Lastly, we walk through our major reflections, concluding with unfinished conversations that foreshadow the theme of the next natsa conference—‘Taiwan Studies in Application’.

Self-Determination, Categorization, and the Unsettling of Indigenous Visual Studies

Self-Determination, Categorization, and the Unsettling of Indigenous Visual Studies Jeremy Carnes (bio) UNSETTLING NATIVE ART HISTORIES ON THE NORTHWEST COAST. Edited by Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse and Aldona Jonaitis. University of Washington Press. 2022. VISUALITIES 2: More Perspectives on Contemporary American Indian Film and Art. Edited by Denise K. Cummings. Michigan State University Press. 2019. KNOWING NATIVE ARTS. By Nancy Marie Mithlo. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2020. SHIFTING GROUNDS: Landscape in Contemporary Native American Art. By Kate Morris. University of Washington Press. 2019. PICTURING WORLDS: Visuality and Visual Sovereignty in Contemporary Anishnaabe Literature. By David Stirrup. Michigan State University Press. 2020. [End Page 25] Interest in and studies of Indigenous visualities and visual cultures are not new. From anthropological texts claiming a particular understanding of Indigenous visual cultures and representations, to photography projects documenting the “vanishing race” (the most famous being that of Edward Curtis), to contemporary representations of Indigenous people in film, there has been a continued interest in the visualities of indigeneity. Only relatively recently, however, have scholars begun to consider visuality from the perspective of Indigenous communities themselves—their experiences, ontologies, cosmologies, etc. Of course, the bulk of this work is being led by Indigenous scholars whose knowledge and lived experience is helping to open scholarly understandings of Indigenous visual cultures away from these colonial formulations toward a self-determined engagement with visuality evident in particular Indigenous and communal contexts. It is within this context that scholars are beginning to ask questions about how we approach Indigenous visual cultures, how we study Indigenous visualities, and how Indigenous visual artists are included or excluded from certain spaces like museums and galleries. How do Indigenous artists get work on display when sources of funding and curation privilege a particular approach to visual artwork that may not be immediately compatible with Indigenous approaches? How do we understand Indigenous visual cultures without the overdetermination of colonialism that so often defines parameters for understanding? How can we begin to complicate historical understandings of visuality in a way that breaks down binaries, categorizations, and distinctions, which help to support colonial institutions and approaches? Nearly all these questions, along with many others, are taken up in Nancy Mithlo’s (Chiricahua Apache) Knowing Native Arts. Through art, Mithlo considers larger questions about institutional and governmental structures that continue to ignore and oppress Indigenous communities. As Mithlo writes of her book, [End Page 26] “Knowing Native Arts identifies and debates the central frames of Native arts scholarship, including the institution of the museum and the academy, forms of Indigenous aesthetic analysis, the receptive scope of Native arts in new global and digital realms, and models of exhibition practices in light of current American Indian curatorial mandates” (4). Mithlo’s “musings,” as she calls this collection of essays, are indispensable in considering the contemporary art world that many Native artists are navigating. The breadth of topics and considerations Mithlo takes up in a relatively short book is nothing less than incredible. Her opening essay builds on the scholarship of Nancy J. Parezo, considering the complexities of Native Arts and art scholarship today through the areas of research and publication, funding, self-determination, and globalization. She argues for more individuals from disenfranchised communities in leadership roles in museums, a clearer understanding and consideration of historical arguments in art history scholarship, and an increase in Native arts research at national and international Native Studies organizational conferences like the Native American Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) annual conference. While Mithlo’s arguments continually return to and reconsider the current state of Native arts practice and scholarship, she offers some nuanced considerations of art itself as it operates in particular social, political, and communal contexts. Throughout the book, Mithlo remains demonstrably interested in what I see as three central strands in Native visual cultural studies today: self-determination, the fallible categorizations of orality/visuality/writing, and the colonized histories of art into which scholars often try to “fit” Native artwork. Throughout this review essay, I will trace these concepts throughout five new books from various disciplines in the academy to consider the current state of Indigenous visual studies. Before moving on, it is important to note the academic positionality of both...

Editorial Introduction

Editorial Introduction